The 50 Greatest Bay Area Rap Songs

The 50 Greatest Bay Area Rap Songs http://www.complex.com/music/2011/01/the-50-greatest-bay-area-rap-songs/187-proof

BY WILLY STALEY | JAN 27, 2011 | 2:54 PM | PERMALINK

The Bay Area has a chip on its shoulder when it comes to hip-hop. Everyone steals Bay Area slang, but the radio won't play Bay Area music. It doesn't help that The Bay's artists never want to deal with major labels, and then cry foul when they don't get spins any further east than Sacramento.

This relative isolation has led to a certain kind of creativity, or strangeness, depending on how one sees it. Whether it's E-40's "Woody Woodpecker on crack" voice, Keak da Sneak's smoker's cough gibberish, Mac Dre's ecstasy-twisted dance moves, or Andre Nickatina's apparent obsession with Jungle Book, some of the Bay Area's most celebrated artists are downright bizarre—and that's what people love about them.

This alternative approach to rap, in the East Bay especially, has a long tradition outside of street rap, that goes back to Digital Underground, Hieroglyphics, Hobo Junction, and continues today with internet phenomenon Lil B. In the Bay Area, gangsta rap is not all that serious, and serious rap is still really fun.

Would the Bay Area give up its strangeness for a shot at the mainstream? We hope not. In any case, here's a primer with The 50 Greatest Bay Area Rap Songs for those who have been missing out. Don't be surprised if you feel like you really missed out; you did.

Written By Willy Staley (@bushwickwill)

50. N2DEEP "Back to the Hotel"

Year: 1992
Produced By: Johnny Z
Album: Back to the Hotel
Label: Profile

You'll recognize the same horn sample that would later be sampled by Wreckx-N-Effect for "Rump Shaker" and Ice Cube for "Friday." N2Deep, a stone-faced Latino duo from Vallejo, were the first to use the sample from Lafayette Afro Rock Band's "Darkest Light." This song is notable for its prominent use of a bizarre piece of early '90s West Coast slang: cock, meaning vagina. The second verse ends with TL saying "back to the telly, I gotta get some new cock," followed by echoes of "new cock" over and over again, into the bridge. That did not age well.

49. MC Hammer "U Can't Touch This"

Year: 1990
Produced By: MC Hammer
Album: Please Hammer Don't Hurt Em
Label: Capitol Records
 

Hammer's legacy has become a bit of a punchline these days, but there's no denying that he was on top of the rap world when he took over the pop charts with "U Can't Touch This." Rapping over a funky sample from Rick James' "Super Freak," everything from the huge pants he wore in the video to catchphrases like "You can't touch this" and "Stop... Hammer time!" became huge pop culture references. The song also helped Hammer sell 18 million units—and gave him the financial resources to start spending like a madman. Unfortunately, Rick James sued, got a profit-sharing settlement out of court, and Hammer eventually went broke trying to support a payroll the size of an NFL starting roster. But that doesn't dampen the impact that this song had in softening the opposition of mainstream America to rap.

48. The Team "Bottles Up"

Year: 2006
Produced By: ShonuFF
Album: World Premiere
Label: Moe Doe
 

The Team, comprised of Clyde Carson, Kaz Kyzah, and Mayne Mannish, made some of the best radio- and club-friendly hyphy music back in the days when it would be acceptable to do so. It provides a nice time capsule of what could have been, had Bay Area rap blown up to be as big as people thought it would, back in the middle of the last decade. Here they tone down the ecstasy references, and made a drinking song instead, which would certainly be more acceptable to a nationwide audience. Strangely, The Team shouts out Taaka vodka—as in, "we put the aaahh in vodkaaahhhh", which they don't—in addition to other, higher-shelf liquors.

47. E-40 f/ Keak da Sneak "Tell Me When to Go"

Year: 2006
Produced By: Lil Jon
Album: My Ghetto Report Card
Label: Reprise/BME/Sic-Wid-It
 

This was mainstream America's first taste of what was going on in the Bay Area around 2005. Over a strangely not-very-hyphy Lil Jon beat—who, it goes without saying, is not from the Bay Area—two of the Bay Area's most distinctive voices attempt to break it down for a wider audience. E-40's call-and-response section is practically a checklist of Things That Are Hyphy, presumably there for didactic purposes. The song is fun, for sure, but it's also very calculated and clearly curated by a major label.

46. The Conscious Daughters "Fonky Expedition"

Year: 1993
Produced By: Paris
Album: Ear to the Street
Label: Priority Records/Scarface Records
 

The Bay Area doesn't make it easy for female MCs, which makes The Conscious Daughters that much more impressive. "Fonky Expedition" goes to show that the girls can roll hundred spokes and swing figure-eights with the fellas—and, more importantly, that they can provide the soundtrack for it.

45. B-Legit f/ Levitti "City To City"

Year: 1996
Produced By: Studio Ton
Album: The Hemp Museum
Label: Jive
 

E-40 is one of rap's best nepotists. His group, The Click, was composed of 40, his sister Suga-T, his brother D-Shot, and his cousin B-Legit. He would later go on to sign his nephew Turf Talk, and his son, Droop-E. However, contrary to conventional wisdom, 40's mix of business with family would prove quite fruitful; everyone in his family is really good at rap, especially B-Legit. B-Legit the Savage was better known for his hard-hitting Mobb music raps, but this radio-friendly number with vocals from Sic-Wid-It's in-house R&B vocalist, Levitti, is enough to tame the savage in all of us. Break out the Carlo Rossi Rhine—never the Chablis!—and the bubble bath for this one.

44. Husalah "Sleep With the Fishes (Boom Clack)"

Year: 2006
Produced By: Nick Peace
Album: Mob Trial
Label: Million Dollar Dream
 

Over a beat that could easily be described as postmodern, or perhaps self-referential, for its use of what sounds like a trunk rattling, and a person saying "boom clack," Husalah does what he does best: talk shit, sing, and borrow rhymes from Too $hort classics. While not typical of many other darker, more thoughtful Hus tracks, "Sleep Wit Da Fishes" is a great example of the energy and exuberance—and absurdity—that Husalah brings to the table.

43. Spice 1 "187 Proo

43. Spice 1 "187 Proof"

Year: 1992
Produced By: Spice 1
Album: Spice 1
Label: Jive
 

This song features one of the most famous opening couplets in Bay Area rap history. Also, it is perhaps the earliest instance of a crime story told with brand names as stand-ins for actual names; many other rappers would go on to imitate this type of story-telling technique, but none ever did it as well as Spice 1, who followed this alcohol crime story up with "187 Pure," which recounts the misadventures of Indo Weed, Dank, and a man named Coke who carries a cane. For "187 Proof," Spice's story-telling was visualized with the single best stop-motion rap video ever made. If you have ever wanted to see booze bottles shoot at one another, or wondered what sort of creative issues you might run into attempting to depict a wino who is also a bottle of wine, it's really worth a watch.